


The Houston Job, Forty-Eight Minutes Earlier

by Keiko Kirin (sakana17)



Category: Ocean's 11 (2001)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:24:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sakana17/pseuds/Keiko%20Kirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Take a couple of cons, lock them in an elevator, and the result is ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Houston Job, Forty-Eight Minutes Earlier

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Franzeska](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Franzeska/gifts).



> Originally written as Yuletide treat for Franzi in the 2007 Yuletide exchange. Thanks to Michelle Christian for the super-fast beta-read.

The elevator was playing the Muzak version of "Volare," which Rusty thought was a bit redundant. Nothing against the great Dean-o, but the original hadn't exactly been heavy metal... This thought propelled him into imagining a heavy metal "Volare," and he was wondering if someone had already done one when the elevator lurched and Linus made one of his quiet little Linus-yelps.

"Oh, no," Linus said, and spent the next few moments in a perfectly choreographed version of Man Stuck In Elevator. First he looked up at the numbers, which were all dimmed. Then he pressed the button for their floor. Stood back to look at the numbers again. Said, "oh, no," again. He drummed his fingers on his chinos. And finally glanced back at Rusty with a look of pure pleading fix-it-please in his eyes and perspiration on his brow.

"What should we do?" he asked, voice almost a croak.

Rusty took his time replying. This wasn't the first time he'd been stuck in an elevator, but the experience held no appeal for him. In fact, it was safe to say that if he were the panicking type, he'd be panicking. But he wasn't the panicking type, because panicking kept you from thinking and solving the problem.

With a smooth glide of silk shirt against the metal wall, he shifted his relaxed slouch to the other hip and crossed his arms. Linus gestured helplessly with outstretched hands, as if Rusty hadn't understood the question.

"Don't press the call button," Rusty said just as Linus reached for it. Linus looked back at him, and Rusty shook his head.

Linus dropped his hand. "Oh, right. Yeah." He chewed on his lip and took a few steps from one side of the car to the other.

"And don't pace."

Linus stopped and gave him a resentful frown. Rusty idly wondered if Linus had any idea how charmingly innocent he looked when he did that.

"Relax," Rusty said, knowing that it was easier said than done. He was glad he wasn't the panicking type. "When Danny realizes we're not there, he'll call. Basher can get us out, no sweat."

"Right." Linus nodded. "Right. Basher." He paused, gave Rusty a bright look, and reached into the badly cut off-the-rack jacket he was still wearing, though at this point in the caper, he didn't need to look like an insurance adjuster from Wisconsin anymore.

Rusty shook his head again. "Do you really want to interrupt Basher right now? Given what he's in the middle of?"

Linus dropped the cellphone back into the interior pocket and drummed his fingers on his pants again. "We have to wait for Danny, don't we?" he said unhappily. He checked his watch, looked up at the floor numbers again. "So we only have, what, forty-five minutes?"

"More like forty-eight," Rusty said, pulling his cuff back over his wristwatch. The Muzak had glided into "Hey Jude." Some things were just plain wrong. "But the good news is that there's still power: air, lights, music."

"I don't suppose--"

"No."

Linus gave him a plaintively exasperated look. "You don't even know what I was going to ask."

Rusty shifted again. "You were going to ask if we could call Saul. No. Think about it. If he leaves in the middle of the game, the whole thing is blown. And everyone else... We'll just wait for Danny. Relax."

"Yeah, yeah," Linus acknowledged, pacing the car again. He took two turns, then stopped short. "Will we--"

"We're good." When Linus didn't move or say anything, Rusty conceded, "It'll be a push, yeah, and Danny will be quietly freaking out, probably lock his jaw in a permament clench, but he'll be freaking out across town, so that's a plus right there."

Linus relaxed a tiny fraction of a smidgin, paced back and looked up. "Could we--"

Rusty eyed the ceiling. "We just passed, what, the seventh floor? No."

"Okay." Linus sighed out heavily. "Sorry. It's just... I hate being stuck in elevators."

Rusty unfolded his arms to untense his shoulders. "Everyone does." He unbuttoned another button on his shirt and was glad he wasn't wearing a jacket. It was probably only his imagination (because it couldn't be panic), but it was getting stuffy.

"I don't know," Linus said distactedly. "I read somewhere it makes some people... you know..." He gestured vaguely.

"Horny?" Rusty prompted.

"Yes," Linus replied quickly, glancing away, probably trying not to blush.

"You read this somewhere?" Rusty said, amused. Linus like this -- it was sometimes difficult to believe it wasn't an act.

Linus, staring straight ahead, licked his lips and waved it off. "Just something I read, I forget where." He straightened his jacket, as if he could make it fit better.

Rusty watched him for a moment, interested. "Public sex is a turn-on for a lot of people. Combine that with the loss of control from being stuck... Yeah, makes sense."

Linus licked his lips again, gaze locked on the floor numbers. After a pause he said musingly, "It wouldn't be public, though." His gaze flicked to Rusty. "I mean, because Livingston patched the cameras so no one can see u--... um, see inside the elevator."

Now, the thing with Linus was that, really, it never was an act, and yet... It wasn't the whole truth, either. Linus was completely genuine without being entirely truthful, and that's what made him so good at the con. It made him appealing and attractive without being blatantly seductive. And yet... Yet, there was something about him: a surreptitious pull, a stealthy allure.

Rusty edged closer, still leaning against the wall. "There's still the being-stuck part. The loss of control." Cold sweat prickles beaded on his skin beneath his silk shirt: subdued panic, except he wasn't the panicking type.

"Well, yeah. Duh." Linus glanced at him again, and this time held his gaze. A long moment passed, then Linus said, all ingenuous boyish smile, "You and Danny must hate it, two control freaks like you."

Rusty slowly smiled back. "All cons are control freaks, Linus. Comes with the territory."

Linus's smile faded and his brow furrowed. "There's a difference between control freak and being prepared. I'm not--"

"Horny?"

No stopping the blush this time. "Wait. What?"

Rusty moved closer, freely invading his space. "Being stuck in an elevator like this doesn't affect you at all? Doesn't get you hot?"

Linus took a step backwards and pressed up against the corner. "Well, it would depend on who-- on the situation," he said, and licked his lips again.

"For example, if the cameras were rigged so that no one could see?" Rusty closed the distance again.

Linus glanced away. "I guess so, yeah. What are you doing?" he asked as Rusty unbuttoned his jacket and looked down.

Rusty cocked his head. "Now that's what we call a tell," he murmured.

Linus sighed and gestured futilely. "I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's because we're having this conversation. I can't stop thinking about--"

"Sex?"

Linus winced and pressed further into the corner, as if he could squeeze himself into the elevator walls. Rusty brushed against him and felt him twitch. He rested his hands on Linus's hips and said, "So this is because of the conversation?"

Linus chewed on his lower lip. "Mostly." He stared into Rusty's eyes. "Kind of. Maybe a little." He swallowed hard. "Oh, now what are you doing?"

What Rusty was doing was carefully unzipping Linus's chinos and rubbing his hips to push them lower, and kneeling before telling Linus, "Lift up your shirt."

Linus hesitated, briefly, before complying, fists rumpling the cotton shirttails. His thigh muscles tensed as Rusty eased his boxer-briefs down. _Some conversation_, he thought, running his tongue over his lips. He glanced up to see Linus watching him, his expression somewhere between _please don't debauch me_ and _oh, please, yes, debauch me_.

Rusty took his prick into his mouth, and Linus, apparently trying to stifle a moan, squeaked. Which Rusty found funny and stupidly cute. He drew back. Linus shivered.

"But what I want to know is, how much of it was really the conversation?" And before Linus could answer, took him again, this time for real, bringing him in all the way, Linus's taste and heat making him suddenly very hungry.

Linus allowed himself the moan this time, sliding as he pushed into Rusty's pull. Rusty grabbed his hips to direct Linus's rhythm. And there it was, so like Linus: completely genuine while being less than truthful -- because this was not the rhythm of an All-American naïve conman, self-conscious about getting blown in an elevator while their cohorts were figuring out something had gone wrong. This was the thrusting of a guy who liked to fuck, and who could control his fuck, make it good and hot and smart because he trusted his partner. Nothing more powerful than that. It made Rusty a little wild, a little restless.

And Linus said, voice uneven, with pauses between words, "Like you need to ask that. Like you don't know that every single thing you do is a come-on. Even when you're not doing anything! How can you be like that? It's amazing. It drives me crazy."

Which Rusty was finding out, and the crazy in Linus was even hotter than the control. He eagerly urged and drank it, sucked it down, swallowed it whole. Linus shuddered and sank to the elevator floor. Rusty sat back, breathing deeply.

"Oh God. Oh God," Linus said, closing his eyes.

Rusty assumed this was a compliment. He fished in his pants pocket and, ah yes, found it: he had a stick of gum he'd almost forgotten about. Spearmint after semen, never a bad choice. His fingers shook slightly as he unwrapped it, but Linus didn't see: he still had his eyes closed.

"Oh, God!" Linus said differently, sitting up and opening his eyes. "What if Livingston didn't rig the camera?"

Rusty paused in his chewing. The cold sweat flush that swept through his overheated, charged body was actually pleasant, in a freefall kind of way.

"No," he said easily.

Linus gave him a wide-eyed, please-know-everything look which was somehow more pornographic than his wet cock and naked thighs and stomach. Rusty smiled lazily at him, and Linus managed a shaky smile back, fumbling his pants back into place. He slid closer and hesitated before reaching for Rusty's fly, nimbly plucking it open. _Very talented fingers_, Rusty thought approvingly, leaning back.

"No," he repeated. "Livingston had to rig the camera. It was all in the plan. And what could go wrong with the plan?"

The End


End file.
